


poetry in your body

by badacts



Series: fire meet gasoline [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2018-11-15 04:47:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11223648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: Being together is about more than just getting together. Jeremy and Jean grow up and work things out.A sequel to 'thick skin, an elastic heart'.





	1. home

**Author's Note:**

> I was all ready to just leave tsaeh alone, but then ilgaksu was like "but what about-" so here we are.
> 
> This is a series of post-tsaeh one shots. Rating may change.
> 
> Title from Sia's 'Move Your Body'.

Somehow, the weeks between winning spring championships and graduation are more stressful for Jeremy than the entire year before them.

Between studying for and then taking his final exams, he signs a contract with the LA Knights and also finds an apartment to rent so he has somewhere to live when summer practices start. He’s caught in a weird circle of not being able to believe his time at USC is nearly done while still organising his life afterwards at the same time.

He’s lying on Jean’s bed pretending to study when he opens his mouth and says, “You should move in with me.”

Jean is sitting in the desk chair with his feet up on the desk, a textbook in his lap. He doesn’t even look up before he says, “Alright.”

“Okay,” Jeremy says, and then, “Wait, that’ll mean a lot of travelling for you. It’s your final year, maybe you’d be better off staying in the dorms.”

“No, the apartment is close enough it won’t matter.”

“And your scholarship doesn’t include living off campus,” Jeremy continues. “It’ll be expensive-”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but my partner just signed a seven figure contract with a professional Exy team.” Jean finally looks up, his mouth quirking in a smile. “He’s rich.”

“Oh yeah,” Jeremy says stupidly. “It seems like you’ve thought about this a lot.”

Jean shrugs. “I knew you would ask.”

“You knew – I didn’t even know!” Actually it’s weird in retrospect that they haven’t talked about it. Jeremy hasn’t considered the idea of them living apart – thankfully, he couldn’t have managed that breakdown on top of everything else over the last few weeks – but he hasn’t really considered the logistics of them actually living together either.

“You’ve been busy,” Jean tells him, putting his book aside. He sounds pitying, but his eyes are warm. “I figured you’d get there eventually.”

“Well, fine then,” Jeremy says, faux grumpy. He’s grinning. “Hey. We’re gonna live together.”

“Apparently,” Jean replies. He’s smiling too.

That night, when Jeremy calls his parents to finally organise the few weeks between him moving out of the dorms and moving in his – _their_ , oh my god – new apartment, he says, “Hey, I’m going to bring Jean with me for break.”

 

* * *

 

“So, what’re you going to tell them when they ask how you guys got together?” Laila asks, munching a carrot stick. Sunday brunch is still a thing, especially now finals are done and they’re in the last few days before they all split up.

Jean and Jeremy look at each other. They haven’t considered this.

“They’re not going to ask that,” Jeremy says. He doesn’t sound certain. “Are they?”

“Why are you asking us? They’re _your_ parents,” Laila says.

Jeremy turns to Jean. His expression is very sincere. “They’re not going to ask that.”

“ ‘We fucked and then we had a fight about it for like a month and then we got together for real’,” Alvarez muses, contemplative.

“Uh,” Jeremy says, right as Jean says, “No.”

 

* * *

 

Someone recognises Jeremy in the airport and asks for pictures, which is irritating – for Jean, Jeremy is predictably excited to meet a fan – but once they get on the plane it’s fairly peaceful. Jeremy settles into his seat with a book and Jean listens to music, curling his hand around Jeremy’s thigh.

About an hour into the flight, he stiffens. Jeremy, whose leg he has just gripped a little bit hard, makes a quiet squawking noise.

Jean wrenches a headphone out. “Your parents know we’re together, right?”

Jeremy blinks at him. “What?”

“You’re out to them? They know we’re together?”

“Yeah?” Jeremy says. “They’re the first ones I told when I figured it out. Wait, what did you think I told them? ‘Oh, I’m just bringing my teammate, ignore it if we seem a little closer than your average teammates’?”

“I don’t know,” Jean hisses. “It’s not like I’ve ever-”

Oh, he hadn’t considered this. He isn’t usually bothered by other peoples’ opinions, but his family situation was complicated long before his father sold him off to pay his debts. His idea of family is non-existent, has been for as long as he can remember, so it makes no sense at all that he should care what Jeremy’s parents think of him, and of them being together.

They stare at each other, and Jean can read the dawning realisation off of Jeremy’s face even as he feels his own realisations grip him.

“Oh,” Jeremy says, and then, “They already like you.”

“They haven’t even met me,” Jean reminds him. He’s not like Jeremy – he’s abrasive, bad-tempered, and stoic even when he isn’t angry. He’s not a _people person._

“Yeah, but I talk about you all the time.” Just saying that makes Jeremy blush. “Look, it’ll be fine. If I like you, they’ll like you.”

“Fine,” Jean says, more of a question that he would like. He shoves his earphone back in before Jeremy can say anything else.

 

* * *

 

Minor misgivings aside, Jean is a little curious to meet the people who managed to produce a person like Jeremy Knox.

They land at Tulsa International in the early afternoon, filing off the plane with everyone else. Jean’s back aches from jamming into an economy class seat just like it always does these days when he flies, but it’s soothed by Jeremy rubbing a surreptitious hand over it under his shirt.

At the bag carousel, Jean almost loses Jeremy in the crowd as he darts over to a tiny woman, sweeping her off her feet and spinning her around while she laughs. The resemblance is pretty obvious – they have the same colouring, and the same eyes.

By the time Jean makes it over to them, Jeremy has engulfed a man – his father, obviously, because he looks like Jeremy’s older twin – in a bear hug and they’re rocking each other back and forth on the spot.

“You must be Jean,” the woman says. She has a stronger accent than Jeremy, warm and mellow. “I’m Marie. It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

“Hello,” Jean says, shaking her hand. She has a strong grip for such a small person. “It’s a pleasure.”

She smiles up at him. “Oh, that accent, my goodness.”

“And I’m Marty,” Jeremy’s father says, offering his hand as well for Jean to shake. He has a kind face. “C’mon, let’s get your bags and get out of this crowd.”

Jean takes both of their checked bags, gently bumping Jeremy out of the way with just his carry-on backpack. When Marty – should Jean be calling him Mister Knox? He doesn’t know – reaches for one he says, “It’s okay, I’ve got them.”

“ ‘Spose you’re balanced with one on each shoulder,” he says philosophically, before leading them out to the exit.

Outside it’s baking hot. Jeremy slides closer on the pretext of handing Jean his sunglasses, which he stashed in Jeremy’s backpack, and murmurs, “You made my mom blush.”

“I did not,” Jean replies.

Jeremy wriggles his eyebrows, grinning. “Told you.”

“Go away,” Jean tells him, not very seriously. “We’re being left behind.”

 

* * *

 

“I thought you said they knew about us,” Jean hisses after he’s closed the bedroom door behind himself. He looks surprisingly flustered.

“They do,” Jeremy replies from over by the bed. He’s been unpacking his bag and feeling a little nostalgic to be home, the same way he always does when he visits.

“They gave us _separate bedrooms_.”

“Yeah.” They’d done that when Jeremy had brought Jess here too. “They probably didn’t want to assume.”

“ _They didn’t want to assume_ ,” Jean starts, and then shakes his head. 

“It’s fine, they won’t say anything if we end up sharing,” Jeremy shrugs.

Jean scowls. “Maybe I don’t want to share with you in your childhood bedroom.”

Jeremy looks at him. “Yeah, okay.”

Jean would go to his grave before admitting he huffs, but he definitely does. Then he looks around the bedroom properly, taking it in.

It hasn’t changed much since Jeremy moved out, and he hasn’t really bothered to change anything himself while he has been here during breaks. His parents already have a guestroom so there hasn’t been any need to convert anything. Jeremy guesses the posters are a little childish, but he honestly doesn’t really notice them any more. There is at least a queen-size bed.

“Is that you?” Jean asks. He’s squinting at a photo pinned on the wall. In it, a teenage Jeremy is holding up a trophy, in Exy gear but without a helmet. It’s not a flattering picture.

“Don’t look at that,” Jeremy replies.

“Oh my god,” Jean says.

“ _Don’t look at it_.”

 

* * *

 

“Sorry boys,” Maria says, “I agreed to this cook out before I knew you’d be arriving tonight. We won’t stay late, I promise.”

“It’ll be fine, Mom, don’t worry,” Jeremy says. “You know we’re used to travelling for games. A three-hour flight is really no big deal.”

They walk down the street to the Baileys’ house, where most of the neighbourhood is gathered in the shade of the trees in their backyard. It’s hot out, but Jean looks cool and calm in charcoal slacks and a pale grey dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up over his forearms. Jeremy is dressed pretty much the same – around here shorts and t-shirts are saved for days other than Sundays. He doesn’t wear it quite as well as Jean, though.

Someone shoves drinks into their hands the second they get inside, shuffling his mom off to chat to some other ladies she knows from church and club. Jean looks bemusedly down at the sweating beer he’s holding and then shrugs.

“Have fun, boys,” Jeremy’s Dad says, heading over to talk to Mister Dwight, who lives next door to their house.

“Hey hey!” someone calls, clapping Jeremy across the shoulders. He turns and is enveloped in a one-armed hug by Luke Bailey, the Baileys' oldest son. Luke is a couple of years older than him, a football player who went to college with a scholarship. Jeremy thinks he’s an accountant now.

“Hey!” Jeremy says. “Good to see you! How are you?”

“Good, man, good,” Luke says. “This is my fiancé, Grace. Gracie, this is Jeremy Knox, he’s a real big-shot Exy player, just gone professional.”

“Oh my god, don’t listen to him, please,” Jeremy says, folding her hand in both of his. “Lovely to meet you. This is my partner, Jean.”

It’s not until after he says it that he realises this is the first time he’s ever introduced Jean as his partner to anyone in person, and indeed the first time he’s ever introduced a man as his partner, and also perhaps that Luke has no idea that he’s not straight.

“Nice to meet you both,” Jean says, shaking both their hands. He’s surprisingly genteel in this setting. Both Luke and Grace stare up at him and then smile.

“Nice to meet you,” Grace says, while Luke says, “Moreau, is it?”

“Yes,” Jean replies. He’s distinctive, standing out amongst the crowd of people Jeremy grew up with, because no one in this neighbourhood really ever seems to leave, tall and scarred with his cropped hair and upright bearing.

“You played really well in finals,” Luke says, “Amazing last quarter. I’ve never seen such a tight defensive line. Not that I’m an expert, but we all watch our hometown hero’s games. I had to pick something up sooner or later.”

“Oh, sweetie, I think your dad’s waving,” Grace says, looking over Jeremy’s shoulder. “Sorry, boys, hosting duties call – we’ll talk again later, I’m sure.”

They bustle off, leaving Jeremy and Jean alone.

“Relax,” Jean says. His hand brushes against Jeremy’s back, which would be nicer if it wasn’t so goddamned hot out here.

“I am relaxed, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeremy says, and then exhales.

“You think I’m not prepared for people to recognise me?” Jean says, gently amused. “Don’t worry.”

Jeremy peers up at him, still frowning. “Yeah, but-” _You shouldn’t have to worry about that here._

“Hm,” Jean says knowingly. “Overprotective.”

“Am not,” Jeremy replies, very maturely. Jean snorts.

 

* * *

 

At some point, they get separated. Jeremy can’t quite stop himself from keeping an eye on Jean – he’s _not_ overprotective – but Jean looks calm where he’s talking to Jeremy’s Dad and a few older men over on the other side of the courtyard.

Jeremy, meanwhile, has been dragged into a conversation with some of the members of his Mom’s book group, stately older ladies in pastels with immaculately curled hair and slow honey accents. His own accent is going to be so much stronger by the time they go back to LA.

They. He and Jean, because they’ll be going back, together. It’s a nice thought.

“And what about your lovely young man, Jeremy?” Mrs Carmody asks him. “I was talking to him earlier. Is he Canadian?”

Oh, god. “No, he’s French. From Marseille.”

“How gorgeous. And he’s on your team at school?”

“Yes, that’s how we met.” Jeremy thinks of what Alvarez had said before they left and feels a sudden desperate need to laugh. He swallows it.

“I met my husband at college too, you know,” she says, and winks. She actually winks at Jeremy.

Someone taps him on the shoulder and says to the group at large, “Excuse me, I need to borrow Jeremy for a moment.”

“Oh, of course, honey,” Mrs Whitelaw says generously, waving a hand. “We didn’t mean to monopolise him.”

Jeremy follows Jean to a quiet spot in the corner of the yard, in the shadows under a tree. Jean says, “I found this place earlier, it’s quieter. You looked like you were about to have an apoplexy.”

“They called you a _nice young man_ ,” Jeremy says, faintly hysterical.

“Are you implying you don’t think I’m a nice young man?” Jean asks. There’s nothing nice about his smile. It’s not the same expression he turned on the ladies a moment ago, that’s for certain.

Jean should look like an alien amongst this group of people, and he kind of does. Somehow it seems to be working anyway, in part because of the people who belong to this particular group.

“They’re taking this really well,” Jeremy says. He sounds surprised, and it’s because he is. He’s out to the important people in his life, but his sexuality isn’t common knowledge. He never considered that these people, who are basically his extended family, might be cruel to him because of his orientation, but he also expected a little more awkwardness.

“Jeremy,” Jean says, his expression turning more serious. “Your mother has a pride flag hanging in the entranceway to the house. Also, every person I’ve met over the age of fifty has told me how pleased they are to finally meet me.”

“Oh,” Jeremy says. “Oh, okay.”

That’s – that’s all true. While he examines the tree trunk and thinks about it, Jean curls a hand around his hip, turning their bodies into one another.

“They’re nice,” Jean says, which from him is a very generous compliment.

“They are,” Jeremy agrees. When he tilts his head up to look at Jean, Jean meets him in a gentle kiss, brief but bolstering. “Hm. Did you bring me here just to make out?”

Jean pulls back. “And miss another conversation with John from number 237 about golf? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Jeremy drops his forehead against Jean’s collarbone. He’s laughing. So is Jean.

 

* * *

 

Jeremy gets woken up by the very quiet sound of his bedroom door closing, blinking his eyes open.

“Hey,” he says. His voice comes out clumsy, a little over-loud. “Can’t sleep?”

They don’t share a bed every night – Jean doesn’t like to sleep alone, and Jeremy’s pretty attached to it too now, but it’s nice to have some space occasionally. Jeremy hadn’t even murmured when Jean went to bed in the guestroom his parents had made up for him. He supposes he doesn't like to assume either.

Jean hushes him very softly now, padding over the floor. Jeremy pats the mattress beside him, pulling back the blanket for him. His parents turn the air conditioning on in the house at night, and it’s so nice to not sweat.

It’s nice when Jean presses close to him, too. Jeremy pulls the blanket back up and lets Jean hold him, sketching absent shapes on the bare skin of his back.

“Okay?” Jeremy asks. Jean might have had a nightmare, but Jeremy’s not quite awake enough to really tell.

“Okay,” Jean confirms, and then tilts Jeremy’s face up to kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him. Jeremy hums into it contentedly, lax with sleep and the barest stirrings of arousal.

It’s the intent in Jean that drags Jeremy further towards to being properly awake. That, and the hand that creeps under the hem of his underwear and squeezes his ass.

Jeremy jolts a little, pressing more firmly into Jean’s body and the unmistakeable proof that he’s definitely turned on. Usually, he’d be pleased. Right now, he nearly rolls backwards out of the bed.

“Ohmygod,” Jeremy rushes out – too loud, shit – and then hisses, “ _We can’t have sex in my parents’ house.”_

Jean pauses, and pulls back. “You’ve never had sex here?”

“No!” Jeremy whisper-shouts.

“You didn’t have sex with anyone at high school? When you lived here? Really?”

“I was busy!”

Jean chuckles. “Busy?”

“Okay, yes, I was, and also you’ve unfortunately seen photos of me as a teenager,” Jeremy says. He was short and had braces and anger issues, it wasn’t a good time for him. “Jess was my first.”

“Huh,” Jean says. It’s fairly dark in Jeremy's bedroom, but a little street light bleeds through the blinds, and Jeremy can make out the contemplative expression on Jean’s face. “Wait, did you ever bring her here? You must have.”

“Yes, I did, but that doesn’t mean we had _sex in my parents’ house_ ,” Jeremy mutters.

“Their room is on the other side of the house,” Jean points out. He’s not necessarily wrong.

“It’s the thought,” Jeremy says.

“Well, they probably have-”

“ _Stop_ ,” Jeremy interrupts. “If you traumatise me by finishing that sentence I’ll never get it up ever again.”

“That would be upsetting,” Jean says. The fucker is smiling. “Jeremy.”

“What.”

“How often did you get off in this bed as a teenager?”

Thankfully it’s dark, because Jeremy is instantly bright red. “A normal amount.”

They’re right up against each other again. Jeremy’s not quite sure how that happened, but he thinks he might be the one who moved. He probably did jerk off the same amount as a normal teenage boy - which was a lot. He hadn’t really considered himself attracted to men at the time besides the odd passing thought, but back then he would probably have killed to have someone as hot as Jean Moreau in this bed with him, warm and willing, kissing gently at his throat.

“Uh huh,” Jean murmurs into Jeremy’s skin. It vibrates through him. “What did you think about?”

 _Something quite a lot like this,_ Jeremy thinks. He says, “Not having sex in my parents’ house.”

“I don’t believe you,” Jean says. Jeremy seems to be kissing him back now, his hands roaming Jean’s back, feeling the flex of his muscles under the skin. He’s not sure when that happened.

“We shouldn’t,” Jeremy says against Jean’s mouth, semi-seriously. “They might know.”

“Well, if you don’t want to,” Jean says. He starts to pull back. Jeremy holds him so he can’t move away.

“I didn’t say that,” Jeremy says. He sounds desperate. “You’re killing me here. I am actually dying.”

“Overdramatic,” Jean replies. He isn’t trying to move away anymore, and his hands are back on Jeremy’s ass. It’s good. Jeremy doesn’t want him to leave. He doesn’t even want an inch of space between the two of them.

“You realise that tomorrow morning you’re going to have look both my parents in the face knowing that you defiled me in my childhood bedroom,” he whispers, rolling his hips into Jean’s.

“Yes,” Jean agrees pleasantly. He tweaks Jeremy’s nipple to make him squeak and jerk. “But also, you’re twenty-four years old, I’ve defiled you multiple times before this, and you _like_ it.”

“Fuck,” Jeremy says breathlessly, and then, “Good argument.”


	2. home - part ii

Jeremy’s a homebody at heart. As busy as he is, with school and the team and the extracurriculars he throws himself into, he always makes time to call home once a week if he can.

Maria listened to what he said and what he didn’t say when it came to Jean Moreau this year, and at some point she developed an image of him in her head. Meeting Jean when he comes to Tulsa is a small shock, because he’s really not what she pictured at all.

Jess and Jeremy were complementary in their similarities – both sunny and cheerful, determined and kind. Jean – Jean isn’t like that.

He’s reserved, softly spoken, and smiles rarely. Maria would call him shy, except there isn’t awkwardness in him. He’s incredibly self-possessed, from his direct gaze to his unfaltering posture to his bared forearms with their tracery of scars.

If she had to pick one word to describe Jeremy, she thinks it would be ‘bright’. If she had to do the same with Jean, the word would be ‘brave’.

There’s also something charming in the way he deals with Maria and Marty both, his French-accented deference and the way he tries with them. He isn’t trusting by nature, but he softens to them pretty fast. Maria knows her son because the two of them are alike, and she can see why Jeremy fell for Jean when she manages to coax a smile out of him for the first time.

Then there’s what he’s like with Jeremy. Maria leans an elbow on the kitchen windowsill one day and watches their cleaning of the cars out front devolve into a water fight after Jean sprays Jeremy full force with the hose, then further into tussling on the lawn, then even further into kissing. Then, Jeremy shoves the still-running hose down the back of Jean’s shirt.

“Hey!” Maria has to call out the window eventually. “Water restrictions!”

The two of them are so covered in grass that they have to hose each other off, and Maria throws towels out onto the porch after warning them not to get water on the carpet. Rather than come inside they collapse on their backs on the porch in the sun, chatting aimlessly in a buzzing murmur that fades into the background with the insects and the people mowing their lawns.

It’s very sweet.

Jean puts his arm over Jeremy’s shoulders when they sit on the couch together in the evenings, utterly unashamed. Jeremy presses a kiss to Jean’s forehead when he hands over coffee in the mornings. They’re not effusive, not really, but they revolve around each other.

Maria has been in love, too. She knows it when she sees it.

She isn’t silly enough to think it’s all smiles and light, though. As glad as she is that their trip south has been idyllic, she knows that life isn’t always, and that Jean’s life has been less so than most. That’s why she isn’t particularly surprised when she comes downstairs at three in the morning and finds Jean sitting on the couch and watching the muted television.

He jumps when he realises she’s there, flicking her a wide-eyed look, before recognising her and relaxing again.

“Morning,” Maria says, voice rough with sleep. “Are you okay?”

“Hi,” Jean replies, low. “I couldn’t sleep.”

The drawn lines of his face tell her why. She hums and says, “Neither. Would you like some tea?”

He looks at her for a long moment with his odd pale eyes and then says, “Please.”

Maria smiles at him and goes through to the kitchen, flicking on the electric kettle. She surprised when he comes in behind her, taking out a pair of mugs and putting them on the bench.

“Sit, sit,” she waves him off. He takes a seat at the kitchen table while she finds tea bags. “Sleepy tea?”

“Yes, thank you,” Jean replies. His accent is thicker at night. When she flicks him a quick glance he’s tracing the grain of the table with a finger, hypnotised.

Once the kettle is boiled, she pours water into both mugs, adds a dollop of honey to each, and then carries them to table. She slides one across to Jean, who folds it between both of his oversized hands like he’s cold.

“I’m a terrible insomniac,” she confesses, earning a quick look. “Busy brain, you know.”

Jean hums his agreement, taking a sip of his tea. It must be scalding, but he seems unbothered. “This is good.”

“A local lady makes it,” Maria says. “Take the rest of the box home with you if you like it. I can always get more.”

“Jeremy hates tea,” Jean says. “You have much better taste.”

Maria chuckles. “Marty is the same – coffee all the way. I can’t stand the stuff.”

“Addictive, though,” Jean says with a half-shrug. “It’s good in the mornings.”

“Jeremy said you’re more of a night owl,” Maria says, and then wonders whether that’s overstepping. Jean looks unbothered though, shrugging again.

“I think it’s more in comparison to him,” he says peaceably. “No one should be that cheerful at five in the morning.”

“Agreed,” Maria says. “He didn’t get that from me, either.”

There’s the scuff of a foot on the wood floor, and then Jeremy wanders into the kitchen blinking at the light. He looks just the same stumbling out of bed as he did when he was little, hair a mess and cheek creased with pillow marks. His face is slack like he’s not really awake.

He gravitates directly to Jean, his mouth curving in concern as he clumsily pets Jean over his shoulders. “Alright?”

Jean tilts his head back up to look Jeremy in the face. He looks softer now, and Maria isn’t entirely sure when it happened. “I’m having tea.”

“Ugh,” Jeremy says, making a face. “Alright, though?”

He has always been insistent, Maria thinks. Jean says, “I’m fine.”

“Mm,” Jeremy replies, nodding heavily. “Come back to bed?”

“In a minute,” Jean says. His fingers glance over Jeremy’s on his shoulder, gentle. “Go back to sleep.”

“Uh huh,” Jeremy agrees, leaning down to rest his forehead on Jean’s for a moment. Maria wonders if he’ll just fall asleep there, but then he straightens.

He detours around the table on his way out, kissing Maria on the cheek. He’s sleep-warm and still blinking. “Night, Mom.”

“Night, honey.” Her heart is over-full with affection for him, her middle child and the sweetest of all of them. She watches him stumble back out and listens to him pad back upstairs, and then realises she’s smiling.

“He usually doesn’t remember he’s been up,” Jean says. He isn’t smiling, but his eyes have gone gentle in the gold of the kitchen light. “Like he’s sleepwalking.”

“He used to sleepwalk as a little boy,” Maria says. “I used to coax him back to bed more nights than I care to remember.”

The edge of Jean’s mouth quirks as he drinks from his mug. Maria takes a sip of hers, tasting mint and chamomile and honey underneath it. She says, “You should probably go, or he might come back.”

“As long as you’re okay?” he asks before moving.

She waves him off. “Of course. I’ll be back in bed as soon as I’ve finished this.”

Jean nods, standing. He rinses his mug and then stacks it in the dishwasher, easy with the space like he feels at home here. It makes Maria smile again.

“Goodnight,” Jean says before he goes. “Thank you for the tea.”

“You’re welcome, hon,” she replies. “Sleep well.”

“You too,” he says, in his low serious voice, and then leaves. She listens to his footsteps until they fade away, and just barely catches the gentle click of Jeremy’s bedroom door closing.

So no, it isn’t always easy. But, Maria thinks, they seem to be making it work.


	3. home - part iii

The problem is that Jeremy has no furniture.

Well, that’s not quite true. He ordered a mattress and bed frame to be delivered the day they get back from Tulsa, and he ends up setting it up while Jean watches in vague puzzlement from the doorway.

“I just love that I get to give you all these new experiences,” Jeremy says around the screwdriver in his mouth.

“I didn’t realise IKEA furniture was considered an experience,” Jean replies. “But actually, I see your point.”

“I don’t know how you couldn’t consider this an experience,” Jeremy says, taking the screwdriver from his mouth to gesture around himself at the confusing array of parts he has yet to put together. “It’s like, a universal part of moving into an apartment. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Well, thank you then,” Jean replies. “I think that’s back to front, by the way.”

“No, it can’t be,” Jeremy says, and then looks closer, “Except for how it can be, apparently.”

Jean crouches down beside him, turning the instruction sheet around so he can see it properly. Jeremy examines him and then says, “Are you just here to supervise from a better angle?”

“Yes,” Jean says. “That piece is next.”

“I’m the captain here,” Jeremy reminds him, picking up the piece Jean just pointed to. “Keep reading the instructions for me, that way we might not have to sleep on a mattress on the floor tonight.”

“Your mother warned me you would say that,” Jean says. His voice has weight over the words _your mother,_ and Jeremy has to hide his smile. His mom really won Jean over during their trip south, and Jeremy still feels a bubble of pleasure pop in his chest every time he remembers that.

“What, that I’d make us sleep on the floor?”

“That we’ll end up living out of boxes and eating of disposable plates forever, if it’s up to you.”

“Lucky I’ve got you to keep me in check, then,” Jeremy says, biting his lip over a smile. “Hey, you know what the other universal moving-in experiences are?”

“I can guarantee I don’t,” Jean replies. “That part next.”

“Fucking in every room,” Jeremy says, just to make Jean choke a laugh. “Hey, I’m not kidding.”

“Once we have a bed, we can start,” Jean says. There’s a simmering heat in his eyes, in the curve of his mouth. Jeremy wants to stop what he’s doing right now and make something of that, but he also doesn’t particularly want to prove his mother right and end up sleeping on the floor. He has to look away so he doesn’t stab himself with the screwdriver.

“Oh, that’s the other one,” he remembers abruptly. “We need to have an apartment warming.”

That’s – that will be fun. He can invite the Trojans who are in town, and his new teammates, and maybe some of the people he’s met in the apartment complex.

Jean looks at Jeremy, eyes amused and considering and not at all concerned. “Maybe once we have a couch.”

 

* * *

 

Jeremy ends up organising the guest list, and he enlists Laila and Alvarez to organise things like drinks and snacks. This doesn’t leave Jean with anything to do except turn up, which he points out to the other three earlier in the day.

Laila pats his cheek. “It’s your job to stand around and look pretty, as usual.”

“That’s rude,” Jean informs her.

“No, wait, hang this up, you’re tall,” Alvarez cuts in, stuffing bunting into his hands. “Right there.”

“I voted for Knights colours, but I was outvoted,” Jeremy says from the kitchen nook. The bunting is metallic red and gold. “I’m not that sad about it, though, it’s pretty.”

“If you say ‘go Trojans’ right now, I am leaving,” Jean says.

“That’s fine, the bunting will still be here when you get back,” Jeremy replies peaceably.

“Of course,” Jean says, but hunts out a stepladder to hang the bunting anyway. It looks gaudy against the pale cream of the walls, but Jean is so used to the colour combination by now it really doesn’t bother him.

By the time he finishes, the other three are sitting around the coffee table with an open bottle of wine. Jeremy has already poured Jean a glass.

“Looking good,” Laila says, waving her hand at Jean’s handiwork.

“Yeah, he does,” Jeremy says, patting Jean on the thigh when he sits next to him, and all three of them snort with laughter while Jean ignores them. He takes a sip of wine, a pinot. It’s good – he bought it, of course. Jeremy prefers things that don’t actually taste like alcohol, in general.

“You look like a middle-aged gay married couple right now,” Alvarez observes. “The kind that own matching greyhounds or something.”

“No, don’t be stupid,” Laila corrects. “Jeremy doesn’t dress well enough for that.”

“Bisexual couple,” Jeremy also corrects. “Also, fuck you, I dress fine.”

“No, she’s right, you don’t,” Jean says. Jeremy pokes him in the ribs.

 

* * *

 

Their apartment is full of people, and Jeremy is loving it.

There are so many of them, and they all want to talk to him, and everyone brings him drinks, so it’s a while before he starts to miss Jean and goes looking for him. He finds him at the edge of the living room where they moved the furniture earlier, sitting with the girls.

“I think wearing a badge for it nullifies the point,” Jean is saying when Jeremy thumps down next to him on the couch.

“What’re you talking about?” He asks the group at large.

“My pin,” Alvarez says, gesturing to her chest. The pin in question says _bad bitch_ in swirling white cursive. “Do you think it suits me?”

“My point is that if you actually were – that, then you wouldn’t need the pin,” Jean interrupts Jeremy before he can reply, which is lucky, because he really wasn’t sure what to say.

“Shh,” Alvarez tells Jean, patting his cheek. “Not all of us have a ‘bad bitch’ face. We gotta work with what we got.”

Jean looks taken aback. “A what?”

“Everyone knows you’re a bad bitch. Look at you,” Alvarez says, gesturing at Jean with a sloppy wave. It’s possible she might already be drunk. “My face says I like to pet puppies in my spare time. I need _assistance_.”

“But Sara, you love puppies,” Jeremy points out. He’s trying not to smile and failing.

“I like puppies _and_ I’m a bad bitch,” Alvarez corrects. She pats the pin to prove her point.

Jean turns to Jeremy, his brow furrowed. “I don’t know what she’s talking about anymore.”

“That’s because you don’t need to work to be a bad bitch,” Alvarez says. “You just _are_.”

Jeremy smooches Jean on the cheek and doesn’t complain when Jean steals his drink. “Jean likes puppies, too.”

Jean looks betrayed that Jeremy has said this. That’s because he’s a bad bitch. Jeremy might also be a little drunk at this point, because he has to press another kiss to Jean’s face where it’s a tight around his pursing mouth.

“Hey,” Jeremy says. “Hey. Hey.”

“Yes, Jeremy?” Jean says, turning towards him with a serious expression.

Jeremy grins. He likes having Jean’s full attention. “This is our apartment.”

“Did you only just realise that?” Jean asks. “Keep up, Knox.”

“I like it,” Jeremy says. “It’s good.”

“Yes,” Jean agrees. He smiles.

 

* * *

 

Jeremy is flitting between people like the social butterfly he is, so Jean just catches glimpses on him – his bright eyes, his laugh, his broad gestures getting increasingly bold with the more alcohol he consumes. He appears out of the crowd occasionally like he’s checking on Jean, giving him a drink or kissing him or saying something absent and fond, as though he’s making sure Jean hasn’t disappeared.

That’s fine. Jean is more than capable of holding an adult conversation with other adults, and even though he doesn’t know most of the people here they all seem to know him.

He doesn’t think of the tattoo on his face as a curse anymore, but it is distinctive.

“You’re Jean Moreau,” someone says while Jean is refilling his glass in the kitchen. He’s slight and a little starry-eyed.

“Yes,” Jean agrees. It’s not the first time he’s been greeted this way. “And you are?”

“I – I – oh!” The stranger chirps. “I’m Dewey! Alex Dewey, I’m another rookie from the Knights, Jeremy invited me-”

“Nice to meet you,” Jean interrupts, before the kid can go blue and fall over. “What position?”

“I’m a backliner! I, uh, I played for the Binghamton Bearcats,” Dewey replies. The name sounds familiar but it takes Jean a moment to place it because the Ravens only played the Bearcats once during fall before he left.

“You’re small for a backliner,” Jean notes. Dewey immediately goes scarlet. “You must be fast.”

“Yeah!” Dewey squeaks. “Yeah, I’m pretty quick.”

“Sweetheart, did you meet Alex?” Jeremy asks, appearing at Jean’s shoulder with a drink in each hand. He passes one to Jean, stealing the not-quite-empty one he’s been holding and sitting it on the bench. He’s been doing this all night, and Jean can’t see the point in protesting it.

“Clearly,” Jean says, a little dry. He’s the warm kind of tipsy, but that’s the most he’s planning on getting when his home is full of near-strangers. He’s safe here, but he doesn’t want to be out of control.

“He’s nice,” Jeremy tells Jean, slipping an arm around his waist. “Good player, too.”

Dewey looks like he’s about to drop dead from a combination of embarrassment and pleasure at the compliment. Jean hopes that he gets over being star struck by the time he makes it onto the court with the knights.

“Okay, bye Alex,” Jeremy says, abruptly turning and dragging Jean with him. He takes him into the kitchen nook where it’s almost quiet, and at least out of direct eyeshot. “Are you okay?”

“I hope you’re more polite to everyone else when you abandon them mid-conversation,” Jean tells him, amused. Jeremy ignores this in favour of staring up in Jean’s eyes, forehead furrowed a little like he can’t figure out how Jean is feeling. “I’m fine, Jeremy. Are you?”

Jeremy smiles like the sun at that, face smoothing. “Oh, yeah. I’m great.”

Jean has to kiss him, keeping it gentle and chaste even when Jeremy melts into him, even when a hand sneaks under the hem of his shirt at his lower back. When he pulls back Jeremy stays still, eyelids fluttering, and then smiles again.

“Hm, nice,” he says.

“Yes,” Jean agrees. He’s a little on fire right now, but their apartment is full of people so it’s really not the time. He takes a sip of the drink Jeremy brought him instead. “Go on. I’m alright.”

 

* * *

 

Jean is talking to Healey, Jeremy’s new captain, now, face serious but relaxed. Jeremy watches him like he has been all night, benevolent, just checking in because he wants Jean to enjoy this experience too.

Also, he looks beautiful in dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt made with thin fabric that clings to the shape of his chest and shoulders. So, watching him is mostly keeping an eye on him and a little bit admiring him.

It keeps hitting Jeremy over and over, even after a week of living here, that at the end of the night – or, at this rate, the early hours of the morning – everyone else will go but Jean and Jeremy will both get to stay. Together. Because they live together.

It’s pretty great. It’s not exciting, because lots of people move in together, but this is Jean, and this is Jeremy, so to him it is, a little bit.

“Dude, you’re such a grownup,” Alvarez says when she appears out of the crowd, hugging him around the neck hard enough it’s a little difficult to breathe. Jeremy finds he doesn’t really mind. “Look at you, living in an apartment with your boyfriend. Amazing!”

“Is it?” Jeremy asks. “I mean, I like it, but-”

“It’s _amazing_ ,” Alvarez says. “You convinced that dick to be in love with you and move in with you. Incredible.”

“He’s not a dick,” Jeremy says with a frown. “ _I_ like him.”

“ _Yeah_ you do,” Alvarez crows, like she’s implying something raunchy. Maybe she is. Jeremy doesn’t know what it is though. One of them has had too much to drink. Maybe both of them, actually. Jeremy yawns.

“You can’t be tired yet,” Alvarez protests. “Stop that right now.”

“Sara, no,” Jeremy says, as she tries to cover his mouth like that will stop him yawning. Immediately after, she yawns.

“It’s catching, no,” she whispers, clinging to him. “No, I’m tired now too.”

 

* * *

 

“Have you seen Jeremy?” Jean asks Laila eventually, peeling her away from some admirers in Knights hoodies. It’s getting late now, and most of the older players have headed home to do whatever it is they do when they’re not at practice. It’s nice to have a little elbow room at last.

“He disappeared with Sara a little while back – something about lending her a book, I didn’t really listen,” Laila replies, shrugging.

Alvarez and Jeremy share a taste in bad sci-fi, so it’s not exactly strange. Not strange when you take drunk logic into account, anyway. “In our room?”

“ _Our room_ ,” Laila teases, tone salacious, before about-facing, “Yeah, probably.”

Jean nods and heads to their bedroom, aware that Laila is following him. He cracks the door open and finds it dark inside, blinking so his eyes adjust to the light through the windows.

Jeremy and Alvarez are curled around each other in Jeremy’s slightly crooked IKEA bed. Alvarez is the big spoon. They’re both fast asleep.

“Fuck,” Laila mutters, backpedalling out of the room behind him. “Fuck, that’s cute.”

Jean closes the door as quietly as he can behind them. He doesn’t reply, but he does agree.

“You realise they’ve left us alone to get rid of everyone else, right?” he asks her. While they’re both perfectly capable of socialising, there’s no doubt that their partners are better at it than they are. There’s no way Jean will be able to make the others leave without offending someone.

She waves him off. “I’m the captain of the Trojans, Moreau. I’m pretty sure I can sort out the rest of the drunken rabble.”

Privately, Jean suspects that the most drunken of the rabble have taken care of themselves by going to sleep in his bed. He says, “Please, be my guest.”

 

* * *

 

When Jean wakes he’s dry-mouthed but otherwise fine. There’s sun pouring into the bedroom and over the bed, brilliant gold against the pale blue of the sheets.

The reason he’s awake becomes abruptly clear when the lump in the covers next to him rolls again in an attempt to avoid the light, and then buries itself in the pillows.

“Good morning,” Jean says, morning rough and amused.

Jeremy shoves his head further into the pillow. “No.”

Jean doubts he can breathe. He pushes at the pillow until he uncovers one scrunched eye and the curve of Jeremy’s cheek and jaw, pressing a generous kiss there. Despite himself, Jeremy presses into it.

When Jean pulls back, the singular eye blinks open and then squints. Jeremy says, barely decipherable but audibly annoyed, “I love you.”

“And I you,” Jean murmurs back. He can’t help smiling a little, because even grouchy and hungover, Jeremy is impossibly sweet.

The moment is broken abruptly when someone kisses the back of Jean’s neck, and then says, “Oh, ugh, it’s you.”

“I’m gonna tell Laila you can’t tell the back of Jean’s neck from her face!” Jeremy yelps, and then clutches his own head and whimpers.

“Shut up,” Alvarez whispers, agonised. “God, shut up.”

“Both of you are pathetic,” Jean says at a normal volume, to a flurry of near-silent protests. Jeremy flails out a hand to cover Jean’s mouth, which is basically an invitation for Jean to kiss his palm before removing it.

“I’m getting up,” Jean says, pushing himself upright. It’s a struggle to get out when the people on either side of him are both clutching the blankets to them.

“Go away,” Alvarez mutters, arm over her eyes. “Where’s my girlfriend? No, don’t answer, Jean, go away. Jeremy, where’s my girlfriend?”

“I don’t know, this is _my_ bed, why are you _here_ ,” Jeremy hisses back. Jean pulls on a clean shirt and leaves them to it, even though what they seem to be doing is very slowly and carefully trying to beat each other up across the mattress.

Out in the kitchen, Laila is already awake, wearing sweatpants and an oversized shirt that is probably Alvarez’s. She’s started the coffee.

“Woman, you are a god-send,” Jean tells her seriously.

“You don’t even like coffee that much,” Laila replies.

“I didn’t mean for me,” Jean says, quirking an eyebrow. “Did you sleep alright?”

“Amazingly,” she replies. “How many times did Sara knee you in the spine?”

“I’ll bill you for my future scoliosis surgery,” Jean says. “Speak of the devil.”

“Fuck you,” Alvarez says as she slinks into the kitchen. “Your boyfriend is crying in the shower.”

Jean shrugs. “Have some coffee.”

“You know, I used to hear how nice you were to people you slept with,” she replies. “You aren’t living up to the rumours.”

“I’m nice to people I fuck,” Jean corrects. “Eggs?”

Seeing her go green that quickly is a little satisfying. That’s because Jean is many things, but nice isn’t really one of them.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Jean says, over Laila’s laughter. Alvarez puts her head down on the table in protest, curling her hand around the coffee mug Laila puts next to her.

Jean takes a seat across from her with his own mug, and Laila sits beside Alvarez and rubs her back. It’s a nice quiet moment amidst the mess of bottles and glasses and plastic cups from last night that they’ll need to tidy up later.

“Good party,” Laila muses. “No one threw up in a pot plant, though.”

“We don’t have any pot plants,” Jean points out. Personally, he’s quite happy no one vomited anywhere.

“The sink, then.”

“Please don’t talk about throwing up,” Alvarez whimpers into the table.

Jeremy emerges from the bedroom, hair wet from the shower. Jean half expects him to take the empty seat at the table, but he walks to Jean’s side and bullies his way onto his lap instead. Once he’s comfortable, he rests his head on Jean’s shoulder.

“Comfortable?” Jean asks, amused.

“Yeah,” Jeremy replies, muffled in Jean’s shirt. “Shh.”

Jean curls an arm around Jeremy’s hips to hold him there, feeling the muscles in his back relax as he sinks into the support. He thinks Jeremy’s hair is dampening his shirt, but that’s okay.

“Cute,” Alvarez says. When Jean looks at her, she’s grinning.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Jean says, though privately, he agrees.


	4. meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this is full of errors, it seems okay to me! But I'm stoned on pain meds so it could be...not okay.

During their vacation in Tulsa, Jeremy also introduced Jean to his older sister. Sophia lives a couple of suburbs over from their parents with her partner and eight-month-old baby girl. She is also basically Jeremy’s twin except for being a girl and being four years older than him, clean-cut in looks but with an eternal drive towards being better. She’s channelled it into her career in biomedical technology, rather than sports, and it’s probably for the good of the human race.

She has, according to Jean, ‘excellent taste in alcohol’, and Jeremy can tell Jean enjoys her raunchy sense of humour, particularly for the way Jeremy can’t help reddening over it. Jean likes her, that much is clear.

Meeting Ellie is a slightly more rocky experience.

Jeremy comes back from his light Saturday morning practice expecting Jean to still be in bed. Actually, he’s looking forward to it, because sleep-warm and drowsy Jean is something that still hits him like a lightning bolt to the chest when he thinks about it, along with the privilege of being allowed to see it for himself.

Instead, Jean is sitting in the armchair in the living room. There’s a tightness in his spine that Jeremy hasn’t seen for ages, the kind that transfers to Jean’s jaw the worse it gets. He’s bolt upright and forbidding, but his eyes flicker to Jeremy and relax just a touch.

The reason for his tension immediately becomes clear when a familiar bronze head rises over the arm of the couch. “Jeremy!”

Ellie flies into his arms and hugs him chokingly tight. She uses their closeness to whisper into his ear, “Your boyfriend has a stick up his ass,” and Jeremy, looking over her shoulder at the boyfriend in question, can kind of see where she’s coming from.

“Not usually,” he mutters back, and then says louder, “What the hell are you doing here?”

She pulls back, holding him at arm’s length. She’s fairer than him and Sophia, but otherwise looks very like their mother. She’s also the kind of girl who has always been described as a ‘firecracker’, though he has always thought ‘tornado’ is a more accurate descriptor.

“Just thought I’d swing by,” she says, with a grin. “Your boyfriend let me in. He made me show him my ID first, though.”

“If you’d texted, that wouldn’t have happened,” Jeremy replies breezily, because he has no doubt that she isn’t exaggerating. “Aren’t you meant to be in Florida?”

She shrugs, her smile turning winsome. “Are you disappointed to see me or something?”

“Does that mean the entire state is on fire?” Jeremy asks, shaking his head. “Want something to eat?”

“God yes,” she replies, letting him go to flop back onto the couch.

“Entertain yourself for a while, then. I’ll make eggs,” he replies, flicking her on the forehead as he walks past to the kitchen nook. There’s a squeak from her, and the pad of bare feet following after him.

“Alright?” Jeremy asks over his shoulder. “I know she’s kind of…a lot.”

“Yes,” Jean replies. The word sounds bitten-off, and Jeremy turns to look at him closer.

“Sleep okay?” he asks instead.

Usually Jean sleeps better once the sun is up, like the light across the bed is a comfort for him. He’d seemed okay when Jeremy left, shifting into Jeremy’s spot with a relaxed arm thrown across the breadth of the mattress, blearily obliging Jeremy with a mumbling goodbye kiss. But Jeremy is well aware that ‘usually’ doesn’t mean ‘always’, so he isn’t particularly surprised when Jean shakes his head a little.

“Okay,” Jeremy says easily. “You eat?”

That earns another headshake. Jeremy curls his index finger around Jean’s little finger, and after a moment Jean takes his hand and holds it. Then he leans down and puts his forehead to Jeremy’s shoulder, falling into him.

“Food or bed?” Jeremy asks, rubbing at the tight muscles of Jean’s back through his shirt.

“Bed,” Jean replies after a moment. Jeremy presses a kiss to his temple.

“I’ll come once Ellie’s fed,” he says. “She can entertain herself. Otherwise I’ll get the girls to come pick her up.”

Jean nods again, his hair prickling Jeremy’s collarbone. He’s had it cropped right back again after letting it grow out, and Jeremy likes the way it shows off all the sharp lines of his face.

They break apart, and Jean heads out of the kitchen towards the bedroom. He brushes past Ellie, who is leaning in the doorway.

“That was sweet,” she says once the bedroom door has clicked closed.

“Sure, you voyeur,” Jeremy says. “How do you want your eggs?”

“Scrambled, please,” she replies. “I didn’t mean to upset him.”

He shrugs, getting out butter and milk from the fridge. “It’s not you. Rough morning.”

Hectic and wild Ellie might be, but she has the same compassion in her as Sophia and Jeremy. It curves her mouth down on one side, and the nod she gives is all understanding. She asks, “Anything I can do?”

“I got it,” Jeremy replies, easy. “You can make toast though.”

She laughs but does so happily enough, leaning against the counter as she does it and telling Jeremy about her summer break so far. She’s just finished her freshman year and hasn’t declared yet, but Jeremy is pretty sure she’s going to end up doing law eventually. She’s coy about it when anyone asks, but Jeremy knows her.

“I like the apartment,” she interrupts herself to say, putting the toast out so Jeremy can serve the eggs on top. “It’s nice. How’s it feel, being a real adult?”

“It’s great,” Jeremy replies, because fuck if he doesn’t love his job and his life right now, bad mornings and all. “Really great. Oh my god, sit at the table, you heathen.”

She’s started eating straight off the bench, and she gestures at him with her fork. “Excuse you – who here is living in sin with his hot boyfriend?”

“You think he’s hot?” Jeremy asks, grinning. They grew up going to church, but Jeremy has a pretty casual relationship with religion. Unlike his relationship with his ‘hot boyfriend’.

“I think he could do better,” Ellie replies, and squawks when Jeremy cracks her with a conveniently placed tea towel.

They do make it to the table, eventually. They chat more – about the Trojans, and Jeremy’s new teammates, and all of Ellie’s thousand friends – and the fact that they talk sparingly when they’re apart means it’s even better when they catch up.

“I’ll wash up and then ‘entertain myself’,” she prods him eventually. “Go on. We can talk more later.”

“Don’t run away in the meantime,” he says, because she honestly might if the whim takes her. She went to Australia for spring break and didn’t even tell any of them about it beforehand – she sent postcards that arrived home well after she did. “Make yourself at home and yell if you need anything.”

Jean is awake when Jeremy enters the bedroom, though it looks like he’s been dozing in the sprawling sun. He presses into Jeremy when he gets into bed, face to Jeremy’s collarbone like he often does when he feels like this.

“You were laughing,” Jean notes, muffled.

“Yeah,” Jeremy replies, smoothing a hand over the back of Jean’s scalp. “Go to sleep. You need your rest if you’re going to be able to keep up with Ellie later.”

“Uh huh,” Jean murmurs. He’s barely awake, and a moment later not even that, his breath falling into the slow rhythm of sleep.

Yeah. Jeremy loves his life.


	5. bourbon and coke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this for @lio-zehel/scherbensalat's birthday :)

As far as Jean can tell, there’s nothing about clubbing that Jeremy doesn’t like.

He loves people, and there are always plenty of those. He likes loud music, and dancing. He also likes ordering drinks at the bar, which is just weird, but probably has something to do with the fact that bartenders fall over themselves to serve him.

“Incredible,” Alvarez observes, as once again Jeremy is suddenly at the bar ordering while other people have probably been waiting fifteen minutes. “This isn’t even a gay club.”

“It’s a talent,” Laila replies. “Or maybe it’s the jeans.” She looks at Jean. “Did you pick those out?”

Jean looks back at her. “I’ve tried to throw them out twice now.”

The jeans in question are more holes than fabric, and not in the fashionably distressed way either. Somehow Jeremy is making them work for him anyway. Jean looks away from the matchbook-sized hole in the thigh under Jeremy’s ass for the third time tonight.

“He’s very scandalous. He could have a nipple slip at any moment,” Alvarez observes, like she isn’t wearing a dress so short she had to make Jean pick up her phone when she dropped it earlier. Not that Jean is complaining.

He’s not complaining about Jeremy’s clothes, either. He’s not complaining about anything. That includes the eager eyes Jeremy has on his every move, and the flirting that goes straight over his head.

Now that Jean has seen photos of Jeremy as a teenager, he understands why. Never has the term ‘ugly duckling’ been more applicable, and some of that has stuck with Jeremy even now that he’s more of a swan than a duck.

“Hey!” Jeremy chirps as he slides into the booth, easing their drinks down onto the table. “Wow, it’s busy in here, huh? I thought I did pretty well getting served that quick.”

“The joke’s too easy,” Alvarez laments, and then before Jeremy can ask, “Thanks for the drink. It’s so good to have a rich friend.”

Jeremy grins back at her, attention instantly diverted. “You’re very welcome.”

Growing up Jeremy’s family never really struggled financially, but the concept of having so much cash to throw around has been something Jeremy is still adjusting to. His father recommended a financial advisor, and Jean seconded that, so now he has to listen to everything Jeremy is learning about investment. Being an adult is weird.

Maybe that’s because Jean’s parents were so broke they sold him to pay off their debts, and because he’s going to be balancing his salary with what the Moriyamas take from it for the rest of his life. On the other hand, he figures he has a right to be a little fucked up when it comes to money.

Anyway, Jeremy is still enjoying the first flush of having money to spend at will on things besides furniture, and that includes spending it on his friends. Even if his friends are drinking beer in a fancy LA club.

Jean is at least drinking bourbon and coke, but it’s not exactly a moral high ground he’s standing on.

Jeremy raises his bottle. “A-hem. To Laila’s first victory as Trojan captain!”

They raise their drinks, laughing. Laila says, “I had a good role model, I guess.”

“Oh, I’m blushing,” Jeremy replies, a hand to his forehead. He does look a little pink at the ears, too.

“Don’t give him all the credit,” Alvarez says, elbowing Laila. “What about your incredible defensive line?”

“Oh yeah,” Laila says. “Thanks to Ollie and Han too, I guess.”

“That’s cold,” Alvarez tells her. “Frigid.” She kisses Laila right afterwards, which takes the sting out of the words.

Jeremy is warm and mobile next to Jean, people-watching with wide eyes as he drinks and sways to the music. Jean feels precisely the opposite beside him, covered from throat to foot in black, the drumbeat forced out of his chest when it wants to get caught in there and spread to his body. It won’t last. He’s never as far removed as he would like to be.

Jeremy presses closer to speak into his ear. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Jean replies, letting Jeremy lean against him. Jeremy seems happy with this arrangement, by his smile.

“First away game this week, Jeremy,” Laila says. “You ready?”

“Of course,” Jeremy replies easily. “It’s not like I’m not used to travelling for games.”

“Yeah, but this is the pros,” Alvarez points out. “Also, isn’t the first time the two of you have been apart since like…I actually can’t remember.”

“You make it sound like we’re together every minute of the day,” Jean says, unimpressed.

“Aren’t you?”

“No, and it’ll be fine,” Jeremy says, with finality, like he hadn’t been stressed about leaving Jean alone in their new apartment until Jean put his foot down and told him not to be ridiculous. “Hey, can we dance now? Please?”

Alvarez is instantly diverted. “Obviously.”

She drags Laila out of the booth and straight into the crowd, leaving Jeremy looking at Jean from where he’s standing, halfway between pausing at Jean’s side and disappearing into the crush.

“You should come,” he says.

“I haven’t finished my drink,” Jean tells him lazily, tilting his half-full glass at Jeremy.

Jeremy puts a hand on Jean’s wrist, making the glass tilt back down on the table with a thump that Jean feels but can’t hear. He leans across the booth to Jean’s ear. “Please?”

He smells like his aftershave, and his breath is warm on Jean’s neck. Jean turns his head in so when he speaks his lips move against the arch of Jeremy’s cheekbone. “Maybe later.”

When Jeremy pulls back, he doesn’t look disappointed. Eyes dark, he says, “I’m going to hold you to that,” before he follows the girls to the dancefloor.

Jean takes another sip of his drink, feeling warm in a way that has nothing to do with alcohol. Being removed isn’t a strong point of his.

Their booth is raised and the dancefloor is lower than the rest of the club, so Jean can watch Jeremy’s head as he pushes through to the little bubble Alvarez and Laila have made for them. They welcome him in, bodies moving in time with the music, and the three of them are all decent dancers who throw themselves into the physicality of it. Even the things that should be goofy – Alvarez does some twisted variants of 60s dance moves, for a start – still manage to be hot.

Jean leans back into the seat and takes another mouthful of his drink. Of course, being attractive, the three of them catch attention like honey. Someone takes Laila’s hand and spins her away and then back into Alvarez, laughing. Someone curves their hands around Alvarez’s hips and is sent packing by the look she gives them. Someone shifts into the space at Jeremy’s back and, smiling, he lets them dance with him for a moment until his attention turns back to the other two.

Jean’s foot is tapping. They’re playing some kind of fast-paced remix of a song off the radio, and it’s doubly infectious.

Someone else moves in, caught in Jeremy’s orbit, and falls into his rhythm. Jeremy welcomes them to within touching distance but no closer, a tease that he definitely doesn’t mean as he matches them. Head thrown back and arms raised over his head, he’s all smooth skin and muscle and kinetic technicolour lights, impossible.

He’s welcoming but untouchable at the same time. Jean, who has touched him plenty, wants to make a lie of that impression using his hands on Jeremy’s sides where they’re exposed by his vest.

Jeremy turns then, Alvarez behind him as they dance together back-to-chest, and catches Jean’s eye. His absent smile turns into something intent. He’s not perfect at Jean’s brand of lazily predatory, but he does a decent attempt.

Jean’s glass is empty. He goes.

It’s much hotter in the crowd, but Jean’s size affords him a little bit of breathing room. Jeremy’s eyes track him the entire way, but he makes Jean come to him.

It’s much louder, too. Jean leans close without touching, feeling the effect of that in Jeremy’s body, and says, “How were you going to hold me to this, exactly?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” Jeremy replies, smirking. It turns more crooked and more honest when Jean puts his hands to Jeremy’s hips, feeling how Jeremy hasn’t stopped moving with the music yet.

“Dance with me,” Jeremy says, a command rather than a question, and, winding his arms around Jean’s neck, takes control.

Though Jean isn’t experienced at this, he makes up for that with an athlete’s physicality, a decent understanding of music, and the enthusiasm that comes purely from having one’s boyfriend dancing almost indecently against one. Jeremy, for all his bashful blushing and semblance of naivety, knows what he’s doing here, right down to how he looks at Jean through his eyelashes, pupils blown.

Maybe Jean is just an open book, these days. And as embarrassing as having a photo of them surfacing on the internet, he can’t help pressing a kiss to Jeremy’s bitten lower lip.

“If you two sneak off to the bathroom to fuck, I’m never going to stop making fun of you,” Alvarez says in Jean’s ear from where she’s moved to his back, making him bark a laugh.

“Jeremy would never be that tacky,” Jean replies over his shoulder, like Jeremy isn’t basically trying to merge himself to Jean’s front right now.

“Not while he’s this sober, anyway,” Laila’s dark chocolate voice says in his other ear. “Hey, who would have known Jean Moreau can dance like a real boy.”

“I was going to make a joke about dancing and being good in bed, but it seems wasted on him,” Alvarez tells her. “Drinks, boys?”

“Please,” Jean replies, echoed by Jeremy.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Laila murmurs to him more quietly before the two of them slip away hand-in-hand, “you know, in public.”

“They’re horrible,” Jeremy says, though he’s grinning.

“You make it sound as though you aren’t surprised, too,” Jean replies.

“I know what you’re like in bed, remember?” Jeremy says. He jolts a little when Jean smooths a hand around his hip and onto his lower back underneath the half of a vest he’s wearing, coming even more alive.

They’re sparks to one another, electricity winding them tighter and tighter together. That feels more true than usual, with the backdrop of this music and these lights. Jean holds Jeremy closer and just feels him and how he moves, and echoes it.

“Careful,” Jeremy murmurs eventually, mouth buzzing against Jean’s throat.

“Careful?”

“You’re making me want to do something inadvisable.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Jeremy tilts his head back. His eyes are black. “Sure you aren’t.” One of his hands drops away from Jean’s shoulder to cover Jean’s where he’s tracing the hole in Jeremy’s jeans at his thigh.

Jean feels the side of his mouth quirk. “Well, if you don’t like it-”

“Shut up,” Jeremy tells him, and kisses him again.


	6. moral compass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sudden writing rampage? It's actually a miracle, tbh.
> 
> Warning for discussion of abuse and serious consideration of murdering someone.

Wednesdays mean a light afternoon for Jean with his classes, so they try to make time to have lunch together each week. Jeremy, who always has a break during the early afternoon between gym sessions, practices and conditioning, is running a little late after a half-hour with the physio – his wrist is complaining after a backliner tried to remove it from his body along with his racquet. That means he hustles up to the apartment, whistling quietly to himself as he lets himself in.

Jeremy drops his bag in the nook by the door haphazardly, because Jean doesn’t give a damn about tidiness and sometimes it’s just nice to not care in his own space. He’ll pick it up later when his mother’s voice gets too irritating in his head.

The apartment is quiet as it usually is, and for a moment Jeremy isn’t sure whether he’s here first. Then he hears the scratch of a foot against the floor, familiar.

Jean appears at the end of the hallway, but doesn’t come any closer. There’s something in the set of his shoulders that makes Jeremy look twice. His face is dead white.

“Hi,” Jeremy says. “You okay?”

Jean doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t protest when Jeremy goes to him. When they’re within touching distance Jean mutters, “You should go.”

Jeremy looks at him again, keeping inches of air between their bodies. Jean is shaking, eyes dead – Jeremy doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so afraid while fully awake.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jeremy replies, and walks past him into the lounge.

There’s a man sitting in one of the armchairs in the lounge, a cane leaning beside him.

It’s not the first time Jeremy has seen the cane, but it’s the first time he has seen it with the explicit knowledge of what the owner has done with it, and to Jean in particular. Jeremy’s father uses a cane – niggling old knee injury, one Jeremy is going to pay for surgery on. Jeremy’s father would never use his like this man has.

“Ah. Well, I suppose that answers the question of whether or not you’re cheating on me,” Jeremy says to Jean, very calmly, and then, “Tetsuji, isn’t it?”

Tetsuji Moriyama nods sharply. His face is inscrutable, but Jeremy can read his irritation at being interrupted.

“What brings you here today?” Jeremy asks, taking an easy seat on the couch across from Tetsuji. Jean stays frozen in the doorway, but Jeremy prefers that – the further out of reach he is, the better.

“I wanted to speak to Mister Moreau,” Tetsuji replies. His voice is cool and lightly accented. He doesn’t move to explain, and Jeremy knows he won’t.

Jeremy looks at him for a long moment. This is the man who, along with Kevin’s mother, developed the sport he’s currently paid millions to play professionally. He’s also the man who has developed some of the top players in the sport.

None of that makes him any less of an asshole abuser.

“You know, when they used to call Riko ‘king’, I always wondered what that made you,” Jeremy says.

Tetsuji isn’t a man who relies on his body to be imposing. He’s a short man, smaller than Jeremy, and despite the fact that Jeremy is sure he could do damage even if he wasn’t inflicting it on people too afraid of him to fight back, that’s not the real threat of him. That is all in his mind, ruthlessly clever and ice cold.

Jeremy has Tetsuji’s attention. Perhaps he came here expecting another muscle-bound meathead of an athlete. That isn’t what Jeremy is, though.

“Does your nephew know you’re here?” Jeremy asks, when Tetsuji doesn’t say anything.

Tetsuji doesn’t move, but there’s a shift in his attention towards Jean that Jeremy, trained for years in tracking every move of his opponents, can sense more than see.

“When I took Jean on for the Trojans, I decided it was in my best interests to make sure I knew exactly what I was dealing with,” Jeremy says. “Yours is an interesting story. Ignominious ending, though.”

With Kengo gone, Tetsuji works for Ichirou directly. Not in power – Neil Josten had said, with a wry expression, _it pays to keep people who grasp for control away from it. Ichirou is not a stupid man, and he knows exactly what his uncle is._

“The way I see it, you’re here for two reasons,” Jeremy says. “One is money. The other is to prove a point.”

Jean, out of arm’s reach and terribly afraid, is the point. There is no one else in the world who can reduce him like this still alive, and if Jeremy had his way and a little less of a moral compass, Tetsuji wouldn’t be alive to do it either.

“It must burn,” Jeremy says. “Your best players are making money for the Moriyamas, but none of it is yours. What were you going to ask for? A ten percent cut on top of what Ichirou is already taking? More? Oh, I shouldn’t say ‘ask’, anyway. I doubt you were that polite. You probably didn’t think you needed to be, considering. Jean would give you anything just to make you leave, and I don’t blame him.”

“An interesting theory,” Tetsuji says into the silence that follows. His voice is glacial. “Did you learn that from your father?”

He may as well have said _I did my research too_. Jeremy smiles and says, “The kind of instincts cops have work pretty well on the court. But I actually got my common sense from my mother.”

Tetsuji stares at him, at last taking stock of him in his entirety. “Do you fancy yourself a protector, Mister Knox? Because you are involving yourself in a situation far more complicated and dangerous that you could possibly cope with.”

Jeremy looks back. “I might believe that from Ichirou.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean that if we were talking about your nephew’s world, you might have a point,” Jeremy says. “But you’re a second son. You come from the same world as me, play the same kind of games, and you’re at the disadvantage of having spent years exerting your power over traumatised children and making a few cash deals in human trafficking. I might be new to it, but I’m a quick study, and I know exactly what you are. Do you really think I’m afraid of you?”

“I don’t think you are,” Tetsuji replies. “But I don’t think you know what I am.”

Jeremy leans forwards on the couch, not in an imposing way – it feels loose and casual, to set an elbow on his knee and rest his chin in the cup of his hand. “I actually spoke with Ichirou, did you know?”

Behind him, Jean catches his breath, just barely audible. He doesn’t know this. Jeremy had done it before they’d been together, before they’d even really met – when Jeremy had called Ichirou’s phone, Jean had still be on compulsory rest in the Fox team doctor’s house in South Carolina.

“I know about Riko,” Jeremy says, meaning _I know_ _that Ichirou killed him for becoming inconvenient_ , “and about Kayleigh Day.” Neil had told him the first, when Jeremy had asked, but the latter Jeremy just knows. Cop instincts, maybe. He sees the almost imperceptible shift Tetsuji makes in his seat, knows it’s a score to him. “I’m a chess player. With you still on the board, I had a feeling that you might make a reappearance at some point. I figured it would pay to hedge my bets.”

“Is that a threat?” Tetsuji asks. He sounds nothing like his nephew, who is cold but had been almost amused by Jeremy’s Californian accent and careful manners, who had told Jeremy in no uncertain terms that he should not even call that number again but also implied that his uncle was firmly leashed, and would stay that way.

Right now, he’s slipped his collar. A whisper in the right person’s ear would mean he would be called back to heel, and Jeremy’s instincts say that this time it might be a little more permanent. It would be a lot harder to get out of the grave.

Jeremy uses his free hand to gesture easily at the sun-bright room around them, and at himself. “Do I look like the type to make threats?”

He wasn’t born to this game, but he’s a strategist at heart. Show him the rules, and he’ll figure out how to win in the end.

Tetsuji looks at him like he’s an unpleasantly venomous snake he’s just stumbled over in the long grass. It’s a little satisfying.

“Let me be clear,” Jeremy says. “Whatever you’re here for, you’ll be leaving without it. And, on that note – I think it’s past time that you left.”

To Tetsuji’s credit, he stands immediately, taking his cane. He says, “Jean.”

Jeremy briefly considers hitting him. He’s already feeling the crunch of a nose breaking under his fist when Tetsuji says, “Goodbye.”

Jeremy follows him to the door. Tetsuji turns back once he’s out of their space in the hallway, shooting Jeremy a last heavy look. “Mister Knox. It has been…interesting. I find myself wondering what kind of Raven you would have made.”

The same as all the other colleges, Edgar Allen had come knocking for Jeremy, whose team won everything there was to win in their region - and nationally, as well - while he captained them his senior year. He’d already known he was heading to USC so it had been easy to turn them down, but he’s wondered the same since. Particularly since all the information about the reality of the team has come out.

“I can tell you that if I’d been on your team, Riko wouldn’t have lived as long as he did,” Jeremy says, a truth that reverberates in his bones, and then closes the door in Tetsuji's face.

Jean is in the kitchen, hands pressed to the bench and head hanging between his shoulders. Jeremy slots himself in beside him so he can look at his face, still grey, and his chest as it jumps under strain.

“Breathe,” Jeremy says, and doesn’t touch him. “Jean, breathe, please.”

Jean looks irritated by this, but he breathes anyway, in through his mouth and out through his nose. His voice is rough when he manages, “You don’t know what he’ll do to-”

He cuts himself off. Jeremy isn’t sure whether he means to finish that sentence with ‘you’ or ‘me’. “He can’t do anything.”

“You don’t know what he is,” Jean says, and hearing Tetsuji’s words out of his mouth is eerie.

“I know exactly what he is,” Jeremy corrects quietly. “He’s a bully.”

Jean laughs, ragged and horrible. “He’s more than that, Jeremy.”

“They’re all the same,” Jeremy replies. “I’ve never met one who will go after anyone willing or able to fight back.”

Jean laughs again. His eyes are damp. “You think I can fight back against him?”

“Hey,” Jeremy says, pressing a careful hand to Jean’s chest, then curling it around the clammy skin of his neck. “Lucky for you, you don’t have to. Right?”

Jean is shaking. Jeremy can’t blame him. The words are easy for him to say, but they’re likely impossible for Jean to believe. He lived for years as a victim of the man, and he’ll probably never forget the bone-deep fear of it, even if he does manage to heal from it.

Jeremy holds Jean steady, and idly debates calling Ichirou anyway. There’s a saying for that. _Take what you want and pay for it, says God._

It might cost him, but he’s rich, and Jean is worth it. Better yet, it’s not like Jean even has to know. As pure of heart as people like to say Jeremy is, there’s a limit.

Having a moral compass doesn’t work so well when you’re playing this game, anyway. The rules are well and good when the worst thing at stake is a red card, but Jeremy can’t cradle Jean to him until the shivering lessens to nothing, his own heart a stone, and not know how much higher the stakes really are here.

He's not stupid. He’s always known how far he might have to go for Jean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As fascinating and terrible as Raven!Neil would be, Raven!Jeremy would pull Evermore down in pieces and drag Kevin and Neil and Jean out of the rubble along with him.


	7. intense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm back and in the mood for sex (between fictional characters, that I'm only writing)

Privacy isn’t as novel as it used to be, but despite Jeremy’s big talking it does take them a little while to progress beyond sex in the bedroom and the shower.

Personally, Jean is pretty happy with those locations. That doesn’t mean he complains when Jeremy climbs into his lap at the kitchen table wearing a shirt of Jean’s that is big on Jean, never mind on him. Especially when it becomes immediately obvious that he’s _only_ wearing the shirt.

He’s a little damp with shower water still, skin sweet with it. Jean clasps his hips under the hem of the shirt and asks, “Good shower?”

“I missed you,” Jeremy replies, his voice husky, right before he reaches down to his side and relocates one of Jean’s hands to his ass.

He’s so confident in bed now, sure of himself and how much Jean wants him. Right now Jean’s mouth is dry with want and his heart is pounding, his cock already half-hard in his pants, so yeah. He wants him.

Jean strokes along the crack of Jeremy’s ass, finding it slick already. Jeremy’s back bows, and he makes the kind of sound Jean sometimes dreams about.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Jean asks. His voice has dropped.

“I missed you,” Jeremy repeats. “ _Ah.”_

He lets a finger in easy, not a single twitch of discomfort, and even now he’s still so, so reactive like they haven’t done this plenty.

“I used three fingers,” Jeremy murmurs into Jean’s throat. He’s smooth like he just shaved, and it must have been such a tease for him to do that while planning this. “I bet you could just slide right in.”

“Is that what you want?” Jean asks. He slips another finger in, just shallow, rubbing at Jeremy’s rim, feeling the scrape of Jeremy’s teeth on his neck in response.

“What do you think?” Jeremy replies, breathless.

“I think that’s not an answer.” He pulls Jeremy’s hair a little with his free hand, almost a reprimand. It gets a reaction like a bite, like a tiny electric shock – a gasp, a bowed spine, a slip of the control.

Jeremy is the tease here, but there’s nothing but blind want in his voice when he says, “ _Fuck me_.”

Jean has never cared much for good manners. He removes his fingers and grips Jeremy firmly around his hard-muscled thighs, lifting him as he stands and then dropping him on his back right on top of their kitchen table.

Jeremy’s arms wrap around his neck, and he pulls him close, their mouths meeting hard. Jean’s not ashamed to say he fumbles his zipper, and that he’s so turned on he hisses when one of Jeremy’s hands moves down to help him, and then not help him at all by working at his cock like he isn’t already as hard as humanly possible.

“Come on,” Jeremy says against his lips, and that’s something that has changed a little about him – now he’s less self-conscious, less inclined to laugh, more wild, all abandonment. Jean personally liked the awkwardness and the certain wide-eyed quality of their sex at first, but this is – intense. Hot. He loves it.

Case in point – Jeremy arches his spine, hooks a leg high up over Jean’s hip and uses the hand on Jean’s cock to position it right at his hole. Then he says, “Give it to me.”

Jeremy’s predictions weren’t wrong. Jean makes one push and he’s inside of Jeremy, the both of them moaning mouth to mouth.

“Jean,” Jeremy says, after giving him what probably to him seems like a generous five seconds to adjust. “Come on. _Move._ ”

And, well, Jean isn’t very good at denying him. Setting himself down on an elbow on the table, curving the other under the arch of Jeremy’s lower back, he drags himself backwards, slow, and then fucks back in.

The table shudders a little, but it’s sturdy, made of solid wood. Jean thrusts again, and again, feeling it hold up while Jeremy just barely starts to unravel underneath him. Once he’s sure that it’s not going to break underneath them, Jean picks up both the speed and the strength.

Jeremy claws at his back hard enough to sting, head thrown back, hair a halo against the wood. He’s noisy, flushed right down past the hem of Jean’s shirt where it’s rucked to his nipples. It’s good, mind-blowingly so, but then Jeremy opens his eyes and meets Jean’s, pupils blown, and it just gets better. Jean can barely fucking breathe with it, mindless, chasing his own pleasure but mostly just desperate for the way Jeremy loses it.

“Like that?” he asks, barely recognising his own voice.

“Yeah,” Jeremy gasps back. “Just like that, baby.”

Jean uses Jeremy’s weight over his arm to balance, working the other between them so he can reach Jeremy’s cock. He strokes three times, in time with his hips, and then, when he can see Jeremy’s lashes fluttering, his lip caught between his teeth, neck tightening with strain, he drops his fingers lower and rubs firmly at the stretched skin of his rim instead.

Jeremy almost yells as he comes. Jean drops his body a little lower, back on his forearm, and comes himself a couple of thrusts later, whiting out with the force of it.

When he comes down, they’re pressed body to body, and he thinks he might be resting his chin on a patch of come on Jeremy’s heaving chest. Things are…sticky.

He moves gently, trying to keep the jostling to a minimum but unable to resist kissing Jeremy’s slack mouth. It elicits a soft hum and, eventually, a response, gentle and generous.

Jean’s going to have bruises on his thighs from the edge of the table probably. He doesn’t care, but he can’t imagine it feels great against Jeremy’s back, which is why he prods Jeremy into holding tight to his shoulders so Jean can lift him and get them back into his seat from before.

They slip apart in the process, and Jeremy makes a predictable sad noise at that, and then a much more interesting noise when Jean can’t resist feeling the slick mess of lube and come between his cheeks.

“Messy,” Jeremy mutters, voice muffled against Jean’s skin.

“Your fault,” Jean replies.

“I didn’t have pockets for a condom,” Jeremy says, and then giggles because he’s still Jeremy Knox. He pulls back and kisses along Jean’s jaw, big smacking kisses, ending at Jean’s mouth. Jean holds him there and kisses him deep, a hand to his jaw.

“Mm,” Jeremy says eventually. “That was fun.”

“Yes,” Jean replies. He was dressed and ready for the day, but now he definitely needs to change at the very least. Also, they might need to open a window in here. “You have to clean the table, though.”

“I’m going to have another shower first,” Jeremy tells him, looking at Jean through his lashes. “Want to wash my back?”

“Hard sell,” Jean tells him, stroking said back. There’s not much he likes more than Jeremy wet-skinned and enthusiastic in the shower – except for maybe him in their bed, or him just asleep in their bed at night, or him smiling in the kitchen when Jean gets in from afternoon practice, or -

“You messed me up. It’s only fair,” Jeremy says, and really. Like Jean is going to say no.


	8. day

Jean’s relationship with Kevin was never been anything but complicated.

Back when Jean whispered words to him in French in the Nest and watched him taste them unfamiliar as he replied, back when they kissed sometimes, all comfort and a little of Jean being fucked-up-in-love with him, back when Jean was so, so sure he wouldn’t make it out alive – it was definitely complicated. And they were kids, then.

Jean doesn’t blame Kevin for leaving, but he doesn’t have to like it either. Worse is that he knows exactly how guilty Kevin feels, but also knows that Kevin will probably never ask for his forgiveness. Even if Jean wanted to forgive him…he won’t, as long as Kevin hasn’t asked for it.

So, it hasn’t gotten any less complicated so far.

Jean and Jeremy are in bed one evening, nearly asleep, when Jeremy’s phone vibrates on the bedside table.

“Fuck, sorry, forgot it wasn’t on Do-Not-Disturb-” Jeremy says, fumbling for it, “-oh. It’s Kevin.”

Usually he doesn’t sound that brand of dismayed when it comes to Kevin. Jean pushes his head up off of the pillow with some difficulty to examine Jeremy’s face in the glow from his phone. He’s biting his lip.

“What does he want?” Jean asks.

Jeremy flickers him a look and then says, “He’s looking for somewhere to stay for camp.”

Jean drops his head back to the pillow. “We have a guest room.”

“It’s not like he can’t afford a hotel,” Jeremy replies. “Also, why’s he coming out to our camp? There’s no chance he’ll sign here.”

“He’s probably going to all of them.” Kevin would never miss an opportunity for more Exy.

“Usually the senior players host the rookies.”

“He knows you. And it’s not like he’s the average rookie, is it?”

There’s silence from the other side of the bed. Jean lifts his head again and finds Jeremy still staring at his phone, brow furrowed.

“If you want to say ‘no’, just do it,” Jean advises. “I really don’t care.”

“That’s not,” Jeremy starts, and then sighs. “It’s not that I don’t want him here. I like him fine. But this is your home too.”

“I don’t care if Kevin is here,” Jean says, which is true. There won’t be a change to their status quo – Kevin won’t apologise, and Jean won’t forgive him, and their delicate détente will continue for a while yet. They probably won’t even talk. “Don’t make the decision on my account.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure how to stop,” Jeremy tells him, clicking his phone screen off and putting it back on the table. “I’ll think about it.”

He rolls in close again, spooning against Jean’s back and tucking an arm over his body, pulling him close. He feels wide awake, but Jean’s already most of the way back to sleep.

“Just don’t let Neil Josten stay here,” he mutters, and the last thing he hears is the sound of Jeremy laughing.

 

* * *

 

Unsurprisingly, Jeremy decides to let Kevin stay. Also unsurprisingly, he spends the week before Kevin’s arrival getting increasingly anxious about it while trying to hide it from Jean.

Jean, who is midway through pre-season conditioning, doesn’t have the energy to get tangled up over either Kevin or Jeremy. He’s not entirely sure how Jeremy is managing it, considering he’s prepping for the autumn as well. Maybe it gets easier the second year, but somehow Jean doubts it.

Jeremy has always been a high-achiever.

“Should I pick him up?” he asks the day Kevin is set to arrive.

Jean snorts. “He can get an Uber, Jeremy. He’s an adult, not an unaccompanied child.”

Then he has a thought, pausing. “He isn’t bringing Minyard with him, is he?”

Jeremy blinks. “What?”

“Last I knew Kevin didn’t go anywhere without him,” Jean says, and then shrugs. Their couch folds out if they need it, and Jean doesn’t mind Andrew even if the feeling isn’t mutual.

“Are they together?”

“Uh, no,” Jean says immediately, and then, “Well, maybe.”

“…why don’t I just ask him?” Jeremy suggests, taking his phone from his pocket.

“What, if he and Minyard are fucking?”

“ _No_ ,” Jeremy says, punching him in the shoulder. “Whether he’s coming _alone_ , you asshole.”

“Go ahead,” Jean says, rubbing his arm. For someone who never fights, Jeremy knows how to land a punch.

“I know the two of you aren’t used to that kind of direct communication,” Jeremy says.

Jean rolls his eyes. “That’s all Kevin and you know it.”

“Hm,” Jeremy says, and leans up to peck Jean on the mouth gently. “Yeah, indirect isn’t really your style.”

He drops back onto his heels, turning away as he unlocks his phone. Jean leaves him tapping away at it as he goes to the couch and sits, flicking the TV on. He’s never had free access to a TV, with real ads and everything, and it’s something of a novelty. Jeremy keeps waking up to find him half-asleep on the couch watching infomercials at three AM because they’re so intensely hypnotic.

Five minutes later, Jeremy’s phone dings gently. “He’s coming alone. Also he says he’s twenty minutes away.”

“Great,” Jean replies absently. Jeremy drops down on the couch beside him and presses into Jean, head flopped back on his shoulder. It’s technically too hot to be so close but Jean likes it anyway. He wriggles a hand around Jeremy’s waist and holds him close.

They both startle when the buzzer from downstairs goes off. Jeremy leaps up to answer it.

“I’ll let you in, one second,” he says, presumably to Kevin and not to a random stranger on the street seeing as he doesn’t bother to actually wait to hear anything before hanging up and unlocking the gate. Jean stands, mostly because he might need to shove a reporter back out of the door.

Of course, it’s Kevin’s usual two-beat tap at the door, and Jean hates that he recognises it. Not as much as he hates the way that Kevin looks straight to him for a moment when Jeremy opens the door and then away again.

“Kevin!” Jeremy chirps, “Come in, come in. How was your flight?”

“It was fine,” Kevin replies as he steps inside, which is very generous coming from him. “Hello, Jean.”

He’s addressing Jean directly. That’s almost impressive.

“Hello,” Jean replies. The both of them pause like they’re expecting him to go on, and they both stumble to fill the gap when he doesn’t.

“This is a lovely apartment,” Kevin says, at the same time as Jeremy says, “Here, let me show to your room.”

They stare at each other, blinking. Then Jean, shaking his head, takes Kevin’s bags from him and says, “Coffee?”

“Please,” Kevin says, though he seems taken aback by the ease with which Jean gets close. It’s laughable, because Kevin was never a threat to him.

Jeremy, jump-started, blurts, “Yeah! I’ll make it. Kevin, sit down.”

Jean drops the bags off in the guestroom. By the time he makes it to the living room Kevin has taken an armchair and he and Jeremy are chatting happily as Jeremy makes coffee in the kitchen. Kevin watches Jean across the room and onto the couch, but he doesn’t pause in speaking.

 

* * *

 

It becomes clear quite quickly that Jeremy has zero intention of letting Jean and Kevin be alone together.

“You know I won’t snap and kill him if you leave the room,” Jean points out when they’ve retired to bed that evening. Kevin isn’t homophobic except in the stupid way some mostly-straight people are where they tiptoe around it, but he watched them go into their room together as though they transformed to an alien species before his eyes.

Jean has a feeling that has more to do with him in particular than anything else. He hadn’t realised the idea of him being with someone was that unimaginable. Or maybe it’s the fact it’s him and Jeremy Knox.

“I don’t think you will,” Jeremy replies. He doesn’t sound sleepy, which a dead giveaway he’s anxious, because usually he starts to slur the second he gets horizontal unless there’s sex involved.

“We’ve spent plenty of time together without you babysitting us,” Jean points out. It’s too hot to be close on the mattress, but he’s on his side with a palm on Jeremy’s back, Jeremy sprawled on his belly with his face turned away.

“Exactly,” Jeremy mutters into his pillow.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

After a moment Jeremy sighs and turns his head so he’s looking Jean in the face. “Look. He came here for a reason, right?”

“Yes. To go to camp,” Jean says.

“Jean, get real. That’s not the only reason,” Jeremy huffs. “He wants to talk to you.”

“I think that’s ascribing a degree of cunning to Kevin that he isn’t capable of. Also, we don’t talk.”

“Does that mean you’re going to sit in silence if I leave the room?” Jeremy asks. “Wait, don’t answer that. Of course you would. Anyway, that’s not the point.”

“I have no idea what the point is,” Jean points out.

“I don’t care if you two talk. I think you should, if you’re ready for that,” Jeremy says. “I just think I should be there.”

“Afraid I’ll scare him off?” Jean’s voice is sarcastic-sharp, and he rolls his eyes. “His psyche isn’t that fragile.”

“No,” Jeremy says plainly, looking Jean dead on. “It’s you I worry about.”

Jean pauses. “My psyche isn’t fragile, either.”

“It’s not about fragility,” Jeremy corrects. “It’s about not having to do this alone. I know there’s a lot of unresolved crap between the two of you and that’s not just going to get fixed, but Kevin coming here is a gesture. It’s a start, maybe. But also he’s kind of an asshole, and I don’t want you to get hurt.” He rushes that last part out like he thinks Jean is going to interrupt him.

He’s not…wrong.

“I don’t think he’ll say anything,” he says instead. “He won’t know how to start.” Kevin can’t have changed that much.

“I think he’s waiting for you to give him some kind of sign.”

“Well, he’s going to be waiting a while,” Jean quips. “…What?”

“He watches you all the time,” Jeremy says, with a strange-looking shrug. “I figure he doesn’t think he has the right to start talking. That might or might not be the right thing by you, and you don’t have to be the one to start of course, but I think right now he’s giving you the lead on this one.”

That does sound like Kevin.

“Hm,” Jean says.

 

* * *

 

The next night when they get back to the apartment and have eaten dinner, Jean joins Jeremy in the kitchen nook for a moment. Kevin is in the living room on his phone, texting happily. Probably giving Neil Josten the rundown of all the scrimmages he did today.

“Hey, can you pass me the…not that,” Jeremy says, wrist-deep in suds as he washes the dishes from dinner. He is looking at Jean over his shoulder, blinking as Jean extracts a mostly-full bottle of vodka from the pantry and then two glasses. “Do you want a mixer for that?”

“Too much sugar,” Jean replies as he goes back into the living room. Kevin looks up when he thumps the glasses down onto the coffee table, cracks the bottle open, and pours them each a generous shot. “Are we doing this or not?”

Kevin gawks at him. For an attractive man, he looks very unattractive as he fishes for a response. It’s the wide-open mouth. He flicks a look at Jeremy almost in panic, but Jeremy just shrugs back at him.

“He stays,” Jean tells Kevin, and sees a little tension leave Jeremy when he hears it. He continues in French, “So?”

“So,” Kevin replies in the same language, and then picks up his glass, toasts Jean, and throws it back. When Jean shoves the bottle in his direction, he holds out a hand. “I’m not doing that anymore.”

“What, drinking?” Jean asks. He honestly can’t imagine-

“It’s not good for you,” Kevin says, completely goddamn serious, like that’s something Jean might not realise, like it’s not the most ironic thing Jean has ever heard.

“Are you talking to me or your liver?” Jean asks, and knocks back his own shot. He pours himself a second but leaves it sitting on the table between them when he sits on the couch directly across from Kevin. “I’m not angry that you left.”

Jeremy wasn’t worried about Kevin, but he should have been, because he looks blindsided right now. “I’m – I don’t-”

“I always understood why, and I always understood why you didn’t take me with you,” Jean continues. The words are glass in his throat but he barely feels the sting. His voice is calm but his heart is pounding, and he’s brutally glad they’re doing this in his native language where he is in control. “I wasn’t angry.”

“Do you think that’s any better?” Kevin asks. His voice has gone hoarse.

“Than what?”

“Than what you were, after,” he says. “Because, honestly, I would prefer it if you were angry.”

“Anger is a poison,” Jean tells him. What he’d felt had been grief, down to the bones – that, and the brutal understanding that he had nothing left besides the tentative promise of staying alive. “Haven’t you learned that yet?”

“My therapist tells me it’s natural,” Kevin says, mouth quirking even though the humour is nowhere near his eyes.

“She doesn’t say three years is too long, I guess.”

“Are you implying you’re more well-adjusted than me?”

“Everything really is a competition with you, isn’t it,” Jean says dryly.

“No,” Kevin replies firmly. “I just don’t see…how.”

“How what?”

Kevin gestures to the room around them, and then at Jeremy. “You have your own home, a stable relationship…three years ago I wouldn’t have considered that a possibility for you.”

“Maybe that’s your problem, not mine,” Jean says coolly.

Kevin meets his gaze dead on. “Maybe. Or maybe you really are more adjusted than me.”

“Is it harder to have everything and lose it, or have nothing and somehow get lucky enough land on your feet?” Jean asks.

“I don’t know that’s an accurate summation of your life,” Kevin says. “Perhaps, ‘have nothing, survive torture, somehow survive in general’.”

“Answer the question,” Jean orders, rolling his eyes. It’s not pity because this is Kevin Day, but it’s not like Jean doesn’t know what he lived through. Illusions have never been his problem.

“I don’t know,” Kevin says quietly after a while. “But then, I’ve always been more scared of the unknown.”

“And we’re always going to be fucked up,” Jean says, picking up his glass and toasting Kevin again before drinking. Over the rim he meets Jeremy’s eyes where he’s leaning against the kitchen bench watching them. He gestures him in.

“Nothing wrong with being fucked up,” Jeremy says in English as he joins them, making Kevin jump. “Don’t worry, I just happen to know that particular phrase in French.”

He probably knows enough to get the gist of their conversation, but Kevin doesn’t need to know that.

It’s not an apology, and it’s not forgiveness, but Jean has never been sure either of them need those things. He’s not sure this is what they need, but it’s better than nothing. And Jeremy, hot against his side and stealing his glass, looks awfully satisfied for someone who could barely cope with the idea of Kevin and Jean being within ten feet of each other.

“Like you know anything about being fucked up,” Jean tells him, jostling him with his shoulder.

“Sure I do,” Jeremy replies. “I know you, don’t I?”


End file.
